This disc documents an hour-long set of collectively improvised music at John Zorn's New York performance space, The Stone. The players are guitarist Nels Cline, saxophonist Tim Berne, and drummer Jim Black; fans of these three, who have worked together in multiple contexts in the past, should know what to expect. The music is all sharp corners and hairpin turns, rhythms that clatter instead of swinging, with Berne's alto piercing through the storm of sound as Cline uses a variety of pedals to create effects ranging from pastoral Americana to rip-roaring, almost metallic skronk. There's a strong element of groove to it all, too, even without a bassist to anchor things. "Rescue Her" is like a cross between Ornette Coleman's harmolodic funk and John Zorn's "Two-Lane Highway," a composition he wrote as a showcase for guitarist Albert Collins. The blues feel continues throughout the disc, even evolving into something like metal on the two-part album closer "Tiny Moment," when Cline's guitar becomes a massive droning roar. This is a fierce, scorching CD that fans of each of these three musicians (and their fan bases have a great deal of overlap) will find highly enjoyable and exciting. - Phil Freeman
Recorded live at The Stone in New York City on a sweltering July evening in 2009, The Veil is the debut of BB&C (also known as The Sons of Champignon), an acronym for alto saxophonist Tim Berne, drummer Jim Black and guitarist Nels Cline—veteran improvisers with a long history of collaboration. Cline first recorded with Berne in the early '80s, while Black was a member of Berne's revered '90s era Bloodcount quartet. Unfolding as a single uninterrupted long-form improvisation and encore, the date's indexing points and song-titles were created after the fact for convenience. Despite having no predetermined agenda or rehearsal, the set flows as seamlessly as if it were pre-composed—such is the intuitive accord of these three veterans.
The trio charges out of the gate with a visceral take-no-prisoners attitude on the appropriately titled "Railroaded," alternating spasmodic thickets of coruscating tone clusters, altissimo alto cries and a battery of muscular percussion with passages of testosterone-fueled furor closer to thrash metal than traditional jazz. Subsequent episodes trade caterwauling frenzy for aleatoric introspection, creating a spontaneous compositional arc that alternates lush volume pedal swells, hushed multiphonics and spectral electronics ("Momento") with interludes of monolithic power ("The Barbarella Syndrome").
Each of the members are band leaders in their own right; as such, Black serves as more than just the ensemble's rhythmic fulcrum—his stylistic percussion detours and laptop interjections provide subtle direction, focusing Berne and Cline's outré expressions into genre-specific territory, whether metal, funk or ambient. Black's dynamic modulations on "Rescue Her" demonstrate the drummer's stoic influence; his furiously shifting polyrhythms accelerate to a fevered pitch at the climax, inspiring a barrage of distorted power chords from Cline, whose kinetic fury amplifies Berne's keening motifs; the group congeals as one, ascending from deconstructed funk into cathartic bliss. Cline expertly applies an endless array of EFX in this volatile, ever-changing environment; waves of caustic feedback and surreal time-shifting delays amplify the concert's psychedelic ambience without overshadowing the dexterity of his blistering fretwork. Berne adopts a similar approach, interweaving multiphonic cries with rigorously repeated linear refrains that provide an amalgam of textural abstraction and hypnotic rhythmic support.
Throughout the album's 58 minute duration, Berne, Black and Cline evoke the raw beauty of urban modernism in an array of expressionistic paeans, from the acerbic salvos of the opener to the sublime rubato lyricism of the closing meditation "Tiny Moment." Employing a scintillating array of electric and acoustic tonalities, they compose an acid-etched portrait of distressed vistas seething with vitality, lifting the veil on man's enduring passion for technological reinvention in the face of inevitable entropy. - Troy Collins
La provocativa y arrolladora catarsis estética ofrecida por BB&C es una temeraria mirada al abismo del inconsciente que en el -siempre efímero e irrepetible- carácter de la libre improvisación, encuentra su fuerza vital para decodificar el mensaje encriptado yaciente en las infinitas sonoridades y dotes camaleónicas de la guitarra de Nels Cline, el autorizado dramatismo que nace del saxo alto de Tim Berne y en la desbordante potencia e imaginación que emergen de la batería de Jim Black.
The Veil, en un tránsito sin detenciones, pasa de los espasmódicos arrestos rítmicos de Railroaded al éxtasis dramático de Impairment Posse, vincula el clima espectral de Momento con las impetuosas asimetrías de The Barbarella Syndrome, unifica los difusos contornos de The Dawn of the Lawn con las modulaciones dinámicas y el abrasivo clímax de Rescue Her, enlaza el espacioso y gradual diminuendo de The Veil con el ascetismo estructural de Tiny Moments (Part 1) para finalmente desembocar en el sublime lirismo que propone Tiny Moments (Part 2). No obstante, más allá de las cualidades implícitas en cada uno de los pasajes contenidos en este álbum y de las indiscutibles virtudes instrumentales de los músicos intervinientes, lo que mejor parece ilustrar sus resultados es el axioma que –en el campo de la psicología del arte- identificaba a la Escuela de la Gestalt: “El Todo es más que la suma de las partes.” - Sergio Piccirilli / elintruso.com
Tracks
01. Railroaded
02. Impairment Posse
03. Momento
04.The Barbarella Syndrome
05. The Dawn Of The Lawn
06. Rescue Her
07. The Veil
08. Tiny Moment (Part 1)
09. Tiny Moment (Part 2)
TIM BERNE Alto saxophone
JIM BLACK drums
NELS CLINE guitar
All music by Tim Berne, Jim Black and Nels Cline
Recorded live at The Stone on July 30th, 2009
Cryptogramophone - CG144